Authors: Rona Jaffe
“I can drop you.”
“It’s all right. Other agents and managers will have me.”
“I can let you destroy yourself. You’re evidently better at it than I could ever be.”
“All I want is a chance to destroy myself,” Silky said, smiling. “Let me do it my own way and enjoy it.”
Libra shook his head sadly. “You’ve changed and I’m sorry for you. I’m sorry for all your friends who trust you.”
“Uh
uh
,” Silky said. “I haven’t changed. I’m just doing something
human
for the first time in my life.”
“Do you know what a hustler
is
?” he asked, sounding almost pathetic.
“I certainly do. I’ve been around enough of them in my life.”
“Forewarned is forearmed,” he said. “You can go now.”
“Thank you. Good-bye.” She got up, went to the mirror, and put the pillbox hat firmly on top of her head. She could see Mr. Libra looking at her and he looked strange. She walked to the door.
“Silky …”
“Yes?”
“If you
get
in trouble … call me. Day or night.”
“Thank you, sir.”
She went running down the hall, leaping with joy, and ran down the stairs instead of taking the elevator. She had beaten him! She had won! It was worth everything to see that strange look on his face when he was watching her in the mirror. She really was a grown-up now. She had beaten Mr. Libra.
And if Bobby was a hustler and only wanted her for what she could do for him? Her heart pounded. She began to feel afraid. But she would know … She would watch everything he did and she would know. She wouldn’t even mention this little talk to Bobby. It would only make him mad. But she would be watching. And meanwhile, she would be happy. Bobby made her happy, and before she had been unhappy, and that was all that mattered. She deserved some happiness. She had too many wounds that had to heal. Bobby would make them heal, and then she would have scar tissue and be strong again, and then she would think about it. Meanwhile she would be happy. She loved him. She loved him enough to stand up to Mr. Libra, and that was a present Bobby had given her without even knowing it. Everything would be all right.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Just before Thanksgiving Lizzie Libra decided to quit her analyst. The main reason was that she no longer had anything to talk to him about. Her sex life had dwindled alarmingly. In fact, it might be described as nonexistent. She sat at home at night watching television, waiting for Sam to come home. One evening, watching her favorite grab bag of stars, she realized that she had slept with each and every one of the men on the panel at one time or another; it was like old home week … no, it was like her past passing before her eyes as she drowned. She might as well face it: she was old.
There was no point to run to Dr. Picker to ask him to explain her exploits when there were no longer any exploits. To tell the truth, she was a little ashamed to admit to the old letch that nobody wanted her any more. Besides, she had gone into analysis in the first place to try to come to grips with her infidelities, and since there were no more infidelities then she was no longer unfaithful, therefore she must be cured. Dr. Picker always said there was a reason for everything. Maybe the reason she had no more lovers was not that she was old after all, but that she was cured.
She informed him, and he was angry. He threatened her. Lizzie looked around his office, at the expensive Oriental rugs, at the authentic objects of pre-Columbian art (Did all analysts furnish their offices at an analyst’s wholesale showroom, or did they just all have the same taste?) and she began to resent the money she had spent. It was really the money Sam had spent, but it was one and the same. Dr. Picker probably had put a down payment on a painting, and that was why he was so bugged at her. She had the temerity to say this to him, and then he really got angry and told her there was a long waiting list of people who were really sick.
“So I’m not really sick?”
“You can get better.”
“But I’m not incapacitated? I’m not suicidal?”
“No one ever said you were.”
“All I am is impetuous, earthy, and unfaithful to my husband.”
“There’s a lot more …”
Lizzie Libra took an ax and gave her doctor forty whacks
…
“I no longer feel the urge to cheat. So I think I can handle my marriage from now on.”
“Perhaps you are cured,” he said dubiously. “Stranger things have happened.”
“I
came
here to be cured. Why do you think it’s strange if you’ve succeeded?”
“It’s such a short time.”
“What short time?”
“You will remember, this is not Freudian analysis. We have not even gotten to the deep root of our problem.”
She wished he would stop being so chummy. It was never “our” problem, it was her problem. She thought of one of Franco’s new dresses that she could buy with the money she was spending on this old voyeur. It had big puffed sleeves and a peplum and a tiny little waist. She looked surreptitiously at the clock on Dr. Picker’s desk.
“You wish to leave now?” he asked.
“We might as well drag it out since it’s my last session.”
“I have no desire to drag it out. I can use the time to work on my book.”
“Am I in it?”
He smiled.
“If I’m in it I want my money back,” Lizzie said. “I didn’t give you the rights to my life.”
“You are not in it.”
“Oh? I’m not interesting enough?”
“Mrs. Libra, you are in trouble and you should stay and have more treatment.”
“I think you should use my time for the window-jumpers,” Lizzie said. She took out her compact and powdered her nose. Franco’s new vermilion lipstick that went with the Gilda Look made her lips peel. She didn’t like it. “I just have nothing to talk to you about any more.”
“That is because we are getting at the real root of our problem.”
“What
is
that root?”
“That is for us to investigate.”
“I’d rather investigate my peaceful old age,” Lizzie said. She knew it was a lie; she would go down kicking and screaming before she would give in to a peaceful old age, but she wanted to say something that sounded well-adjusted. He seemed mollified.
“Perhaps you are not so frantic,” he said. “You seem calmer. I see great progress. Would you like to take a sabbatical?”
“Yes,” Lizzie said, just to get rid of him. “I think some time off to digest what I’ve learned would be good for me.”
Dr. Picker looked at the appointment book on his desk. Then he picked up the phone. “Tell Hudson she can have Libra’s appointment times for the next few weeks,” he told the nurse outside.
Lizzie resented being called “Libra.” It was like being a stock on the market. She looked at the creep’s prison pallor and wondered if he had ever seen the light of day. How could he, sitting in here in this air-conditioned womb from eight in the morning till eight at night? When had he ever seen real people with real problems? Everything was out of a textbook for him. He ought to go to one of Sam’s parties. That would teach him a thing or two. She decided to invite him to the next one. Did he really like her? Had he ever really liked her? Did she even exist for him? She felt sad. She didn’t like saying good-bye to anyone.
“Perhaps you are having second thoughts, Mrs. Libra?” The doctor stood up and extended his hand firmly, as if to punish her. “You have made a decision. If you have second thoughts you can phone me. Good-bye.”
His hand was dry, reptilian. He should get out in the air more. They shook hands and Lizzie dawdled to the door because there was still five minutes left of her time and she resented having to pay for it if she didn’t use it. He was going to cheat her of her five minutes if it was the last thing he did. Those analysts learned the Power Play at analyst school, along with Punishment, Voyeurism, and Answer a Question with a Question. Why couldn’t he have learned to speak proper English without an accent? He’d been here for
years
. Maybe they learned the accent at analyst’s school too, so they would sound more authentic.
She went directly from Dr. Picker to the Oak Bar, where she had three martinis which she signed for and two more martinis which a tall, handsome young man bought for her. He said he was a model. She thought he looked a little too old and soft to be a model, almost flabby, but she phoned upstairs and found that Sam was at the gym and Gerry had gone home for the day. She looked at her watch, smiled at the young man, and took him upstairs with her.
They had a pleasant twenty minutes in the bedroom and then he said he had an appointment and she was glad to see him go because it had been foolhardy to bring him here when Sam could come home unexpectedly. She realized she had rather liked her romp with the young man, even though he was much too flabby through the middle to be a model (perhaps he was an out-of-work model?) and she realized that she was going to enjoy her sex life a great deal more now that she didn’t have to report every detail of it to Dr. Picker. She no longer had the creepy feeling that there were always three people in the bed. The young man said he would call her, and she thought maybe he would and maybe he wouldn’t, but it didn’t matter either way. She felt pleased with herself. He left, and she douched, saying good-bye to him with his babies, took a shower, washing him off with perfumed soap, put on her prettiest negligee and went into the living room where she mixed herself a fresh batch of martinis. Even if he had lied about his age (he had volunteered his age, so he must have been lying), he had wanted
her
—a woman old enough to be his mother! Well, ten years older than he was anyway. She wasn’t through yet!
When Sam came back from the gym, all clean and damp, Lizzie greeted him with pleasure. He was such a dear old friend, and she loved him more than any man on earth. She had remade her bed and she knew he would never find out because he never went near it anyway. She wondered how
he
could live without a sex life.
“I have to take Sylvia Polydor to dinner,” Sam told her. “She’s passing through on her way to Europe. I guess I’ll take her to Pavilion.”
“Can I come?”
“You know she hates other women. We’re just going to talk business. I’ll be home early. Did anybody call me?”
“I let the service get them,” Lizzie said.
“Why don’t you order something in the room—you look tired.”
You bet I’m tired
, Lizzie thought.
I have a right to be tired
. “I guess I will,” she said.
He took his calls from the service and went into the bedroom to change his clothes. She heard the shower running, then she heard him making some calls. He had forgotten she existed.
When he had left she called Room Service and ordered a non-fattening dinner: broiled liver, plain spinach, melon, and tea. She weighed herself and was pleased to see that she sweated off a pound and a half with the male model, or perhaps it was just that liquor dehydrated you. She missed Elaine, who was in Reno getting laid by a millionaire rancher and putting in her residence time for her divorce. Elaine called her almost every night, drunk of course, but not incoherent. The millionaire rancher was a big drinker too, so they had a lot in common.
She didn’t feel like watching television this early, so she ate dinner in front of the windows that looked out over the city, and thought about things. She was a women who had everything: people probably envied her. She knew everybody, she had adventures, she had all the money anyone could want, she had a beautiful hotel apartment, a famous husband, a limousine with chauffeur at her disposal, the latest clothes, a masseuse, a standing appointment at one of the best beauty salons in town, unlimited charge accounts everywhere, good friends, a young face, a still trim (almost) body. Her husband trusted her. They never fought seriously about anything. He needed her. They were content. She began to cry.
Did Sylvia Polydor have everything too? Did people envy her? Was she going to Europe alone?
When the telephone rang Lizzie wasn’t going to answer it, but then she thought it might be Sam wanting her to meet him somewhere for an after-dinner drink, so she blew her nose and picked up the receiver.
“Yes?”
“Is Mrs. Libra there?”
“This is she.”
“This is Jared.”
“Who?” Who the hell was that?
“Jared. From Las Vegas. The King Cactus Bar.”
She remembered. That bartender who looked like Paul Newman. “Oh my God,” Lizzie said.
“I don’t whether I should be flattered or hang up,” he said. He was making his voice even lower and sexier on purpose.
“Where are you?” she said.
“I’m in the lobby. Can I see you?”
“Are you crazy?” she said. “What if my husband was sitting here, you dunce?”
“Is he?”
“No.”
“Well then, can I come up?”
“I’ll meet you in the Oak Bar.”
No
, she thought,
they’ll think I’m working split shifts
. “No, make it Trader Vic’s.”
“I’ll be waiting,” he said. He hung up.
What a nerve!
Lizzie thought. She washed her face and put on new make-up, white under the eyes to cover the circles, false eyelashes, because she’d cried them loose, and a young, pink lipstick—the hell with Franco and his vermilion skin remover. She wondered if the kid had come all the way to New York on his motorcycle.
She tried on three different dresses until she was satisfied. The Gilda Look was not her, but she couldn’t be unfashionable. No, it was not her at all. She finally settled for a last year’s Courreges—the kid probably wouldn’t know the difference. She brushed her hair out loose and pulled it back with a little Alice-in-Wonderland hair band. From far she looked nineteen. She took her sable coat, which had just come back from storage, and a key. She dropped everything on the floor then and ran into the bedroom to spray herself with perfume. She was just going to have a drink with the kid and that was all. But she might as well make a good impression on people who saw them together—people shouldn’t think he was out with his mother. She took the coat and the key and her purse and went downstairs.
Jared the ex-bartender was waiting at a table by the wall in Trader Vic’s. In the half-dark he looked so much like Paul Newman it was scary. The waiters kept looking at him as if they were not sure. When Lizzie entered the room they all looked at her, first with curiosity and then appreciatively when they saw her sit down at was-he-wasn’t-he Paul Newman’s table.